God willing, the King commented.
Good. Then the day following, can I look for you in Loch Etive?
Yes. When, depends on the tide. The mouth of that loch shoals badly.
Only at high tide could we win through.
Very well. Tomorrow this host will move down Glen Orchy, and along
Aweside. Then through the Pass of Brander the next day, to Etive
That pass will be held against you. It is the key to Lorn. A sore place to win through.
Well I know it. But I cannot ferry thousands across Loch Awe, as you will go. So Brander it needs must be. There is no other route, is there? For an army. We must win through Brander, then.
Your galleys threatening MacDougalls rear, in Etive, should aid us.
It will be hard task, Sire, Campbell put in.
Remember Clifford in Glen Trool. Brander is ten times worse. It is like to the gates of hell!
It is Glen Trool that I am remembering, Neil. We must reverse Glen Trool.
Angus Og, like others, looked doubtful. But he shrugged.
So be it, Sir King-I ride for Gallanach and Kerrera. Tomorrows morn I will have my galleys under Cruachan, at the far side of Brander.
Wherever you may be! Let us eat…
So, less than a couple of hours later, the two very different companies set out from the new camp by Loch Tulla, from the ruddy glow of fires into the wan shadows of the August late evening;
Angus, with perhaps a score of his captains, on shaggy Highland garrons, to head south by west down Orchy; and Edward and his glittering knightly throng to lead his 600 jingling men-at-arms south. eastwards by the main drove road across the mounth of Mamlorn, for the Lowlands. There was no question but that Edward at least, went in high spirits.
Watching them go, with his much reduced little band of close companions, Bruce sighed.
Much Scots blood will be shed before
MS
we all forgather again, I fear. My sorrow that it must be I who ordains it.
Do not blame yourself, Sire, Douglas said.
Who shall I blame?
The dead Edward. Edward of England, Lennox averred.
On him alone lies the blame for all. One mans hatred and lust for power. All those years ago. A great man, a great king, turned lour!
Aye-so great a man consumed! By a worm at his heart. Why, Malcolmwhy? I honoured Edward once. Esteemed, almost worshipped him. Loved him better than my own father. He was the greatest prince in Christendom, the finest knight, the best soldier, the ablest ruler. Edward Plantagenet. And yet-this! Destroyed and destroying. For what? For a notion, a false notion. Laced with spleen.
He thought to play God, Campbell put in briefly.
And we all suffer.
Aye. All men suffer when a king errs, Bruce nodded sombrely.
And the greater the king the greater the suffering. Here is a lesson for me, at least-however small a king! If ever I think to play God! Watch it, my friends-and save me from myself.
With the Scots to rule, there is little risk of that, I think!
Thomas Randolph said-and for once brought smiles.
Another camp by another loch, a loch as great as Loch Ness, this one, one of the largest and longest in Scotland. Lying northeast and southwest, Loch Awes club-foot thrust off a long toe north westwards into the narrows of the fierce defile of Brander, down which it poured its outflow, the brief but major River Awe, four miles, no more, to the arm of the sea called Etive. In the other direction the loch presented a mile-wide barrier for twenty-three miles, almost to the sea again at Craignish, a mighty moat guarding the country of Lorn. Trackless impassable mountains, in a vast semi-circle, sealed off the north.
It was early morning, and the lately risen sun was streaming rays slantwise down the valley of Glen Orchy at their backs, into the wide green upland amphitheatre which cradled the foot of the loch. Bruce was standing on a birch-crowned knoll above the shore, and staring due westwards to where the water altered all its character, exchanged all its blue-and-gold loveliness, mirrored amongst green and purple hills, for a narrowing smooth dark torrent that swept dramatically into the grim portals of a mighty gorge, there to disappear in sombre shadow. Brander.
The daunting place dominated all this north end of the loch, below the
tremendous multi-peaked mass of Cruachan. It was unlike any pass the majority even of the Highlanders had ever seen, a huge, flooded, steep-sided gullet of the mountains, vast in scale, a barren rock-lined funnel with unbroken sides soaring from 800 to 1,200 feet before easing off into the normal hill-flanks above. All the floor of that long defile was deep dark green, deceitfully smooth but swift-flowing water, with no banks or shores. And there were three miles of it.
All night Bruces scouts had been bringing in reports, and the King had scarcely closed his eyes throughout. The pass was held in great strength by the enemy. There was a single slender track along its north side, the only road, at wildly varying heights above the water, clinging like ivy to the rock-face. How consistently the length of this was held could not be ascertained, because scouts could not get past the first block. This was at a point about a mile along where, at a wooded cleft, a fairly strong party was stationed, guarding timber barricades. But high above, on the side of Cruachan itself, where the steepest walls of the defile levelled off somewhat, were large numbers of MacDougall clansmen, ranked all along the hillside. No doubt, beyond, at the far end of the pass, there would be more waiting.
Shades of Glen Trool indeed-save that here everything was magnified many times.
All the royal camp had been active since dawn, but for the last hour or so the King had stood alone, silent, apparently fascinated by that yawning chasm to the west, preoccupied to a degree, staring just staring. His leaders brought him reports, from scouts, of the readiness of the various companies, and he accepted these with mere nods, scarcely seeming to hear. Men eyed him almost as much askance as they eyed what Campbell had called the jaws of hell.
James Douglas came to speak, at length.
All is ready, Sire.
Fourteen hundred of the youngest, noblest Highlanders, in four companies-under the MacGregor, the Mackintosh, MacDonald of Lochalsh and Sir Ranald MacRuarie. With 200 light bowmen.
All stripped to the lightest. Waiting.
Bruce looked up towards the mountain-tops, still shrouded in the white night-caps of fleecy mist, tinged golden now with the early sun.
How long before those mists clear, Neil?
Two hours yet. At this season.
And the wind? It will freshen?
Campbell, whose castle of Innischonell was less than a dozen miles to the south, shrugged.
About the same time. I cannot give you any certain hour, Sire. But, with this weather, the mounting run draws the wind off the sea and up the hillsides. It is a thing we have to beware when we stalk the deer. It is partly this wind which blows away the thinning mists from the tops…
So the wind first? Not a breath of wind now stirred the quiet morning.
Yes. Or so is usual.
Then let us pray this is such a day! So be it. Off with you both. You have only two hours-and this must be timed most closely. The King held out his hand.
The day depends on you both. Yours is the most dangerous part, Neil my friend. With no knightly glory! But all rely on it Your people have all the flints and under? Jamie-your greatest task will be to hold back the rash.
After your great climbing. Watch for it Go, then-and God be with you…
So back eastwards along the loch side the four companies marched off, into the dazzle of the sun; and any MacDougall scouts and lookouts posted in vantage positions to the west could not but assume retiral, or possibly some regrouping to attempt a crossing of the loch by boat farther south.
But, round a thrusting shoulder of the mountain, out of sight from the west
; the Falls of Cruachan came crashing down in foaming white water, in a series of great steps and stairs, from the lofty and vast corrie cradled amongst the topmost peaks of the mountain.
Through the centuries this cataract had worn a deep and steep ravine for itself. Up into this the eager bands of Highlanders turned, and began their tremendous climbing.
Bruce waited, anxiously watching the clinging mists that wrapped the summits above some 2,000 feet. If that cover were to lift too soon … He gave them a trying, uneasy ninety minutes; and then, with the mists most evidently thinning and retreating, he marshalled his residual forces and gave the order to advance westwards, towards the pass, remaining armour at the front. They did not hurry.
The increasing narrowness of the track elongated the column grievously, inevitably. Gradually the towering jaws of the defile closed in on them. Word came back from forward scouts that small enemy pickets were retiring by stages before them. They would draw the invaders on, to the timber barricade a mile deep in the pass, as Bruce had drawn Clifford at Glen Trool.
The first stirrings of air reached them as they entered the gorge.
In a little while there was a distinct breeze from the west, in their faces. With a sigh of relief the King halted his long column about half a mile in.
Mens noses caught the tang of burning before ever their eyes
perceived the thin blue film of smoke ahead. Quickly that film darkened, however, and soon it was not blue but murky brown, until great billowing clouds of it, growing ever thicker, swept up the pass on the westerly wind. Neil Campbell and his company had played their part. Having climbed most of Cruachan, and descended beyond, they had fired all the heather and bracken hillside at the western entrance of Brander, and the pass was now acting as a vast funnel or flue.
Streaming-eyed, blinded and choking in the acrid flood, Bruces force still waited. Now it was their ears turn. All listened.
It was not easy to hear, for sound does not carry downhill so readily as up, and the sullen roar of the river was close at hand. But presently, high and thin, those keenest of hearing could discern the yells and shouts and clash of battle, far up above them. Douglas and his three companies had hurled themselves down from the very mountain-tops, out of the mists upon the waiting MacDougalls halfway up the hillside. Campbell would now be moving back to aid them. And Angus Og might well be making his presence felt farther west still.
The King again ordered the advance, slowly, into the smoke.
Soon they overran their scouts, who warned that the barricade was just ahead, around a bluff. Warily the armoured men moved in.
However bewildered by the smoke, and the obvious trouble above, the enemy here had not deserted their post. They had no warning of the invaders approach however, with the smoke, and the first of the royal troops were clambering over the timber obstructions, swords and battle-axes poised, before the alarm was shouted.
Wild and bloody fighting followed, incoherent, unsophisticated to a degree. Tight-lunged, stinging-eyed men hacked and slashed and battered blindly, Bruce himself in the forefront, wielding a mace for this hit-or-miss warfare. But the defenders were massively outnumbered, and in only a few minutes the position was won.
The Kings men pressed on along the pass, the smoke thick as ever.
One or two boulders and the occasional shower of smaller stones did come down on them from the obscurity above, but these were scanty enough to do little damage. Undoubtedly up there men were too busy fighting for their lives to concern themselves with the stone-rolling tactics. Sometimes, indeed, a body it was that came hurtling down-and these were not always MacDougalls. The Battle of Brander was being fought up on Cruachan, not in the pass.
There were two more barricades to negotiate. But the first was deserted and the second but half-heartedly held, the defenders not unnaturally conceiving the situation to be desperate. For now the sounds of fighting could be heard directly ahead, and low as the track level, presumably from the western mouth of the pass, the MacDougalls were looking as anxiously back as forward.
The smoke was beginning to thin. Sore-eyed, Bruce led his force cautiously on.
That, in fact, for the main body, was the last of the fighting.
Presently they could sense the fierce sides of the defile to be drawing back, opening, even though they could not actually see it. Then, where the track bent, to cross a spidery timber bridge over a sudden narrowing of the river, they came across many bodies, dead and wounded. The marks of axes on the bridge timbers told the story. Some of the casualties were MacDonald isles menthe crews of Angus Ogs galleys. They had saved the bridge, anyway.
Soon after, with an abruptness that was startling, and painful to streaming eyes, Bruce strode out of the mirk and constriction, into sunlight again and wide, colourful vistas. Blinking, bemused, he and his stared around them.
They had passed the wide belt of burned heather hillside, which now stretched upwards, to their right, in blackened, smouldering ruination, the flames dying away as they reached the rocks of the defile proper. In front, the wide basin of Etive, with its glittering waters, opened out. Those waters were positively littered with shipping, galleys, some beached, some lying out, some maneuvering, some apparently fleeing down-loch with others in pursuit. And along the south shore a running fight was proceeding westwards, most clearly at speed.
Bruce turned his aching gaze uphill and slightly backwards. Because of the still-smoking hillside it was impossible to see what went on up there; but men could be seen elsewhere, streaming away over the various western flanks of Cruachan in large numbers, scattered and without order. Douglass people, had they been defeated, certainly would not have fled in that direction.
The King, breathing a long sigh, relaxed for the first time for hours. He sent young Irvine with a few hundred clansmen, to climb up there, to see if they were required. The rest he led on towards salt water, the smell of the tangle in their nostrils, instead of the sharp tang of smoke.
Another battle fought-or not fought-in no heroic fashion, Thomas, he observed, to Randolph, who had been at his side throughout.
But, I think, a battle won. How say you, nephew? Won yes. But
against Highlanders, Sire. Not against armoured chivalry.
It was against the enemy! Are your notions of knightly warfare only to apply to southron lords and the like?
No, uncle. I have learned my lesson. But I remind you that one day you will have to fight my way. One day come to grips with the armoured might of England, in true embattled war.
One day, yes. I know it. When I am ready-not before. When I have a united realm behind me. Or as united as I can make it.
Until then we fight my way! However it shames you! With my wits.
It shames me no longer. I see that your wits can do great things.
And save many lives, thousands of lives. Any other, to take that pass, would have sacrificed thousands. On both sides.
You see that, do you? Good. He turned.
And you, Sir Hugh?
What do you see?
Ross, the hostage, inclined his red head.
I see, my lord, that I would never wish to fight, nor pit my poor wits against, King Robert the Bruce! The word king was slightly emphasised.
Ha! So the tide turns, indeed! I am glad of it…
Two days later, the mighty and ancient fortress of Dunstaffnage, on the point of its green peninsula jutting into the mouth of Loch Etive, capitulated-the celebrated castle which had once been the seat of the early royal line whose latest descendant now hammered at its doors, where the Stone of Destiny had been enshrined before it was taken to the capital of the newly united Scotland, at Scone, Alexander of Argyll, aged, white-haired, stumbling, came out alone, bareheaded, barefooted, to make at least superficially humble submission to the monarch-and was received with stern dignity, decision and no recriminations. But he did not produce his son and heir Ian Bacach, John the Lame, of Lorn, wh
o had commanded at Brander-who had indeed commanded at Strathfillan, that bloody day two years before. He had slipped away, by night, in a small boat, from a postern gate. The lack of him took something of the shine out of the Kings victory.
But it was nevertheless a great and sudden triumph, achieved in
infinitely less time than might have been expected. Alexander
MacDougall yielded up Dunstaffnage, ordered the dispersal of his clansmen, and swore future allegiance. His Comyn wife glared daggers at Bruce, but said no word, as they were banished, under Campbell guard, to the small and remote castle of Gylen, at the southernmost tip of the island of Kerrera.
There was great feasting and much Highland jubilation that night in the lofty stone halls of Dunstaffnage -for the castle had not yielded through any lack of provisioning, at least. And next day Angus Og, with a much augmented fleet of galleys, the largest probably that even he had ever commanded, sailed south down the Sea of the Hebrides for Galloway. He took with him James Douglas, and many another, as passengers.
The King, in a strange mood of reaction, almost sadness, turned his face eastwards, once more. For the first winter in a dozen years there would be approximate peace in the North.
Chapter Fifteen
If Robert Bruce has first turned his hand to stage-management, and what his brother called mummery, almost a year before at Aberdeen, for the setting of his first Privy Council, now, in the spring of 1309, he really went about the business with a will. While quite a number of his friends and supporters, as well as Edward, either disapproved of the entire proceedings as unsuitable, unnecessary and beneath the dignity of a monarch, or at least showed no enthusiasm, others again responded heartily, even gleefully. Of these the most useful and active were James Douglas, Gilbert Hay, Ranald MacRuarie, Bernard de Linton -and, strangely enough, Thomas Randolph. Also, of course, Christina of Garmoran, who had once again crossed Scotland to the east coast for the occasion The King had put as much thought and planning into the affair as into any of his military campaigns. For this was, in fact, no less a campaign than any, however different.
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